The Governance of Regional Economic Development

The Governance of Regional Economic Development

After series of consultations and building of Regional consensus across all stakeholders' segment, the Development
Agenda for Western Nigeria (DAWN) was adopted by the States of Western Nigeria to further their collaborative and
cooperative development strategy for regional development. And in July 2013, DAWN Commission was officially
inaugurated by the Governments of the States to pursue and manage the Southwest regional development programme.
The key concept driving the DAWN Strategy is the understanding that Regional competitiveness holds the key to Nigeria's overall growth and development, and indeed her ranking on the Global Competitiveness Index, where she currently languishes on the 127th position.

Indeed, Prof Michael Porter of the Harvard Business School, and the world-acclaimed expert on Competitiveness, had on March 21, 2013, at a programme organised by the National Competitiveness Council of Nigeria in Abuja, argued that Regions are the most important economic unit for competitiveness in large countries.

He believes that many essential drivers of competitiveness reside at the Regional level, as Regions specialise in different sets of clusters and cluster strength drives regional performance.